One zWORKer works daily with equipment that makes drugs like Ibuprofen possible. Ed Novit has experienced all aspects of the pharmaceutical industry. From selling equipment for pharma companies to coming up with new ways to use that same equipment, he has seen it all.

Novit is the business development manager for Freund-Vector based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His job is to find new ideas for the capital equipment Freund-Vector makes. The type of machine that makes those little Ibuprofen pills can cost anywhere between $100,000 and $6 million.

The pharmaceutical world is constantly evolving and once Freund-Vector develops new processing equipment, Novit keeps the ball rolling – or rather – keeps the pill rolling.

You can get lost in the world of coding. And that’s exactly what member Lucas Moser does at zWORKS.

Moser works remotely for a business analytics consulting firm, PMsquare, based out of Chicago. He leads the software development and operations of their new products team.

Basically, what this means is that he takes napkin drawings and ideas and creates something tangible that users can interact with on a daily basis.

PMsquare is an IBM business partner and works mainly with a data-driven software for businesses called IBM Cognos and IBM Cognos TM1. This software analyzes different data points within a company then allows interaction with those points like filtering company reports, analyzing trends and deviations, sending notifications if a specific data point is triggered, and so on.

A new startup company at zWORKS likes to mix things up – quite literally.

Mix is a data-driven marketing company that helps businesses get across the chasm between sales and marketing. They push for digital marketing alongside human intelligence.

“Sometimes you have to add the human element back in,” COO Gene Cottingham said. “Someone in the industry for 10 or more years may see trends that the computer doesn’t or some companies don’t have the $100,000 tool to assess the data.”

He described the cyclical process in five steps – creating the content, placing the content, evaluating the results, running those through the filters, and making recommendations to the changes in the content.

Congrats to Matt Phillips with the online lifestyle retail corporation, Parker Gwen, for receiving our 3rd annual GROW scholarship! This scholarship is presented in conjunction with the Boone EDC and awards an annual membership to an entrepreneur or small business looking to grow in Boone County. Check out the full press release.

The mother of two turned from marketing and sales with an agriculture company to a home staging and redesign startup in 2016. Two years later, and Vredenburgh is a proud mother of four with a blossoming company called Nested Spaces.

Nested Spaces will work with realtors on home staging, whether vacant or occupied, and clients on redesign. Vredenburgh said the ideal situation is to stage a client’s home during the sale then help redesign when they buy a new house.

For staging, she says it’s about neutralizing the house so it appeals to the most potential buyers, while redesigning is more personal.

The second annual zWORKS summer internship program officially started today with an eBootcamp focusing on local entrepreneurship. This summer’s interns are both high school and college age and will be working for zWORKS startups like Zio, Try It Tiny and Mix It Out.

They got to hear from a variety of speakers including Mayor Tim Haak, MOBI President Josh Garrett, Apprenace’s Chris Hoyt, zWORKS co-founder Dan Moyers and Jacob Schpok with Elevate Ventures.

Mayor Haak discussed why bringing startups to Zionsville is important. Garrett told the story of how MOBI was founded and what goes into building a startup from nothing. Hoyt talked about how students can make the most of their internships.

“The zWORKS Summer Internship Prgram offers a fabulous opportunity for students to work firsthand with local entrepreneurs,” zWORKS Executive Director Kate Swanson said.

A zWORKS startup is using modern technology to create more responsive health care.

Mark Plaskow started PAEAN (pronounced ‘payin’) Clinical in January of this year after he sold American Health Technology. PAEAN has created an automated portable microscope to enable more points of care to do better medical testing using imaging, artificial intelligence, and telemedicine.

Plaskow previously worked in Africa where he worked with malaria and childhood cancerous diseases. A small team of entrepreneurs were inspired by his medical imaging technology and this ultimately led to the PAEAN.

“The most rewarding part of PAEAN is definitely that the mission is to make a permanent change for the better,” Plaskow said.